Upgraded Kirov class: Project 11442 [Admiral Nakhimov]

GarryB wrote:

He "claims" claims are just that.

Claims either way are all we have.... what a shocker that you believe the negative claims and dismiss the positive ones.

Hm....that so Garry.

For the record, I fully believe the S-35 is vastly better than the F-35 and I have dismissed all claims from pro-western guys stating otherwise.

I fully believe Russian AD and missiles systems are better, I fully believe Russian Tank guns are better than Western ones. I believe other russians things are better than western ones

however Garry if you insist on doing this with me, Naka was found to be in a much sorrier state then what was believe a MUCH worse one and it was built at a later date then Lazarov...

Kirov is a heap of junk, now buddy. Knowing this about these two ships. I'll ignore what I know about them.

just because they built the things to last for 100 years and number one and three are where found to be in piss poor condition. somehow you want me to believe the second one...which the Russians the looked at and said themselves it's in poor of a condition when they looked into bringing all of them back online thus they only went with the two that they considered feasible.


SO because some officer, said this I am supposed to ignore, the shape of the others was found in, the fact the Russian government said themselves Lazarov is in bad of condition, I am supposed to ignore that for this "officer".

Please tell me your aren't that much of a fanboy.

walle83 wrote:If China could get the old rustbucket Varyag back in shape then offcource its possible to repair all the old Kirov:s. The question is just if its economical worth it.
Personaly i dont think so. Yes I would love seing these impressive ships back at sea but how many corvettes and frigates can you get for the same price?
If the price for 1 updated Kirov = 4 brand new frigates, then frigates is my choice.

Smartest comment of the day.

Could they get Lazarov online? yes I mentioned this in another thread roughly how much it would take.

However, the cost is simply not worth it. The ship's condition is so bad they would need to toss insane amounts of money at it and it's not worth it to them rightfully so.

walle83 wrote:If China could get the old rustbucket Varyag back in shape then offcource its possible to repair all the old Kirov:s. The question is just if its economical worth it.
Personaly i dont think so. Yes I would love seing these impressive ships back at sea but how many corvettes and frigates can you get for the same price?
If the price for 1 updated Kirov = 4 brand new frigates, then frigates is my choice.

Forget frigates, if the estimates we had are true then price would approach value of 2 Yasen subs.

Even 1 would make whole thing redundant but almost 2 are no brainer.

Nuke sub > surface ship, any day of the week

these ships are from teh 70s and 80s.. pretty much none of the wiring or piping would be worth keeping anyway... it just makes sense to replace it all and start from a hull.

And arithmetic makes no sense in this case as four frigates can't do what one cruiser can do... just like having 20 frigates does not mean you don't need a light carrier that can carry 20 VSTOL aircraft.. for a start where are you going to find the sailors to crew 20 frigates.. Russia is not going to have a huge Navy so quality matters in addition to quantity.

GarryB wrote:for a start where are you going to find the sailors to crew 20 frigates.

Russia can comfortably operate 20 or more heavy frigates/light destroyers (> 5,000t).
Finding sailors is no issue, especially given that modern frigates of 6,000t (FREMM) require 130 crew (150 crew incl. air component).

In comparison the brown water, 950t missile patrol boats (aka submarine candy) of the Buyan-M class require ~40 sailors.

GarryB wrote:these ships are from teh 70s and 80s.. pretty much none of the wiring or piping would be worth keeping anyway... it just makes sense to replace it all and start from a hull.

And arithmetic makes no sense in this case as four frigates can't do what one cruiser can do... just like having 20 frigates does not mean you don't need a light carrier that can carry 20 VSTOL aircraft.. for a start where are you going to find the sailors to crew 20 frigates.. Russia is not going to have a huge Navy so quality matters in addition to quantity.

A sole frigate? no, it couldn't but enough frigates suppress the concentration of weapons.

In this case frigate would be better has the Russians could distribute missile platforms over a wider range of four ships for example then one.

I am not saying russia doesn't need cruisers they do, but you said yourself they will never have a huge navy. So they will never have a huge amount of cruisers to start with frankly if they dos tart making Lider's I'd be surprised if they made more then six of em.

I can't belive that upgrading Lazarov would be more expensive than building a new destroyer (Lider) or a new cruiser. They have NO development cost and the hull exist! The only one big problem would be the nuclear reactor, nothing more. For me it's just a excuse for Russia having not the manpower, shipbuilding capacity and know how now to rebuild or build more than 1 big ship at the same time.

Russia has now not the support of Ukraine, or any other nation, to build a big ship, they are to 100% relied on themselves. To rebuild the capacity for shipbuilding industry they start small with corvettes and smaller frigates and go later (around 2025) for big ships. My very personal opinion!

It would be a big mistake not reactivating Lazarov soon. Smaller ships are not bad and nice, but they lack endurance and abilities. A big cruiser can implement an A2/AD zone of 500 km radius in ocean (with S-500) and help friendly subs from being hunted and detected by enemy planes and helicopters. The endurance is much higher and it can work as a command center for a fleet.

kvs wrote:
Banderastani support.  LOL.   Banderastan is not even in the condition to help itself and would be a negative support for Russia.

All you Russia hating clowns are pathetic.   The days of behemoth ships, including air craft carriers, is long over.   In the missile era it
makes more sense to have several smaller ships packing massive missile firepower than one big ship clumping the same capacity in one
big target.  Really, the fascination with massive ships is idiotic.  Why not just pack the whole navy into a single super sci-fi ship.   It will
make it easier for the enemy to take the whole outfit out all at once.  

Russia can build the massive atomic ice breakers but can't swap out the nuclear power plant on the Nakhimov?   Put the crack pipe down.
It's giving you serious brain damage.

WOW!!! What a smart posting, free from personal insults and on a really adult level. It's not on me, but you insult EVERY member in this forum...the Mods should take care of you!

Why I'm a Russia hating clown??? I would love to see Lazarov on duty in Russian Navy! Fit with modern electronic and new armament the ship is ready for next decades.

I only wrote that the biggest problem would be a new reactor, not that it's a impossible problem!!! first reading, then understanding and then answering...that's the correct sequence.  

You compare a nuclear icebreaker with a nuclear missile cruiser    That makes no sense! They are two complete different types of ships. To your argumentation China and Korea would have the best conventional Navy in the world, because they build many and really big cargo ships. And Germany building really big and incredible expensive luxus passenger cruiser is a naval power in the world?

kvs wrote:The days of behemoth ships, including air craft carriers, is long over.   In the missile era it
makes more sense to have several smaller ships packing massive missile firepower than one big ship clumping the same capacity in one
big target.

Please stop your trolling! Neither Gorshkov Class nor Karakurt have firepower, radar perfomance and really ability to hunt subs (Karakurt no ability). You seriosly want to tell me that navalized S-500 would fit on Karakurt? The term "Behemot Ships" referred to old WW2 battleships, not to modern missile cruisers or missile destroyers! And because Lazarov is a "Behemot" Nakhimov is not a "Behemot"? Your posting makes no sense! Only a ship from destroyer beginning can impose a effective A2/AD zone, securing smaller ships and subs in a wide radius. How long can a corvette stay in blue water alone? About 2 weeks! The endurance of bigger ships are unmatched, about 3 months normally or longer. So please, please stop writing bullshit and behave a bit please! Better YOU put your crack pipe away!

kvs wrote:Banderastani support.  LOL.   Banderastan is not even in the condition to help itself and would be a negative support for Russia.

Ukrainian are NO enemys, they are brothers to Russians! Only the administration is a NAZI administration. Turn your hate on other things!

Ukrainian shipbuilding industry is now in very poor condition, but without Maidan and the corrupt elite it would be a good support for russian defense industry. Don't forget where the Big Kuz comes from! But yes...ukrainian industry lacked a bit quality after collaps of soviet union, but not every company.

Azi wrote:I can't belive that upgrading Lazarov would be more expensive than building a new destroyer (Lider) or a new cruiser. They have NO development cost and the hull exist! The only one big problem would be the nuclear reactor, nothing more. For me it's just a excuse for Russia having not the manpower, shipbuilding capacity and know how now to rebuild or build more than 1 big ship at the same time.

Russia has now not the support of Ukraine, or any other nation, to build a big ship, they are to 100% relied on themselves. To rebuild the capacity for shipbuilding industry they start small with corvettes and smaller frigates and go later (around 2025) for big ships. My very personal opinion!

It would be a big mistake not reactivating Lazarov soon. Smaller ships are not bad and nice, but they lack endurance and abilities. A big cruiser can implement an A2/AD zone of 500 km radius in ocean (with S-500) and help friendly subs from being hunted and detected by enemy planes and helicopters. The endurance is much higher and it can work as a command center for a fleet.

It very well could be, depends on the size of both ships and how much they want to do to the warship.

Nakhimov alone already is costing more than a Yasen to upgrade and I am more they will put more money on the ship under the table.

Lazarov is in much worse shape then Nakh was, it would require more work. The estimates I have seen making upgrading that thing beyond silly.

However Russia themselves have said no to Lazarov and really that's that.

Its a fact that once Nakimov is out, petr velikiy will have to be upgraded, thus leaving Russia still with 1 active battlecruiser. This is very worrysome since either northern fleet won't have a flagship, or the pacific will stay a rustbucket fleet.

Even if the Lazarev will cost more than building a lider or super gorshkov from scratch, it will take a lot faster. Think 7-8 years versus 10 or 12
to get fully upgraded and tested. Also Russians themselves say that they aren't capable of building a ship larger than a gorshkov from scratch, so better the expensive than the impossible.
Why can't Zaliv, once its fully operational, upgrade the Lazarev.

Russia can comfortably operate 20 or more heavy frigates/light destroyers (> 5,000t).
Finding sailors is no issue, especially given that modern frigates of 6,000t (FREMM) require 130 crew (150 crew incl. air component).

No, they already want 20 frigates so getting 20 more instead of each upgraded Kirov means getting 60 frigates.. forty frigates more than they actually want and then using a group of 10-20 in the role they would have used cruisers.

20 Frigates do not replace a cruiser.... on paper their firepower would be not bad, but operationally, they wont be sending 50 ships anywhere... it would more likely be a fixed wing carrier and a couple of cruisers and a half dozen destroyers plus support ships... frigates are not SAG ships, they are coastal utility vessels that can step up for some roles.... but not to replace larger vessels.

I am not saying russia doesn't need cruisers they do, but you said yourself they will never have a huge navy. So they will never have a huge amount of cruisers to start with frankly if they dos tart making Lider's I'd be surprised if they made more then six of em.

I expect they will make 4-8 cruisers, and 15-20 destroyers and probably 20-30 frigates, with maybe 50-60 corvette sized ships, mostly split between the Northern and pacific fleets.

The endurance is much higher and it can work as a command center for a fleet.

Things a half dozen frigates can't do.

It will
make it easier for the enemy to take the whole outfit out all at once.

Using that logic they should stop developing Armata and just make jeeps... smaller, lighter and faster and much much cheaper... the problem is that large ships can do things small light ships can't do.... like sail to Venezuela and operate in the south Atlantic for a month...

Russia can build the massive atomic ice breakers but can't swap out the nuclear power plant on the Nakhimov? Put the crack pipe down.
It's giving you serious brain damage.

There is no point in building new cruisers now because there are no destroyers or frigates to operate with them... equally there is no point in building large carriers now as there are no surface action groups for it to protect, and there is no real destination for that surface action group to go to.

In 5 years time Russian investment in Asia and Africa and south america means such SAGs will become a useful tool to encourage trade and commerce.

Or is the Russian government going to rely on the US Navy and british navy and french navy to ensure its trade routes don't become blocked.

You compare a nuclear icebreaker with a nuclear missile cruiser    That makes no sense!

Creating a naval nuclear propulsion system is incredibly expensive... the models used in the ice breaker were based on models developed for the new generation cruisers and aircraft carriers...

Ukrainian are NO enemys, they are brothers to Russians! Only the administration is a NAZI administration. Turn your hate on other things!

If the people of the Ukraine are friends with Russia then things should be solved in the next elections... you know... democracy in action. Personally I doubt much change.. the majority have picked their direction and it is to the west... it was the Ukraine that cut ties with Russia, not the other way around.

The Russians have spent a small fortune getting the South Koreans to upgrade the Zvezda shipyard to allow production of ships up to 350 metres long and 350K tons in displacement.. with state of the art equipment and tooling, so I don't think they will then get the Ukraine or South Korea or China to build cruisers and carriers for them.

[quote]Ukrainian shipbuilding industry is now in very poor condition, but without Maidan and the corrupt elite it would be a good support for russian defense industry. Don't forget where the Big Kuz comes from! But yes...ukrainian industry lacked a bit quality after collaps of soviet union, but not every company.[/qutoe]

The Ukraine cut ties with Russia, not the other way around.... there will be no cooperation there I am afraid.

Russia already did more than enough to subsidise the ukrainian economy, they would not have had a rocket industry or engine production industry if Russia had made their own. Instead they kept buying ukrainian engines and parts for all sorts of things.

it was the Ukraine that put a stop to this charity, so the Russians will have to spend a bit more and develop the technology themselves but at least they will then have the capacity to make their own stuff and not put money into a foreign economy to do that.

I think people are missing the point.  While Russia is in the process of rebuilding her Navy from the ground up, she won't be building Cruisers for the best part of another decade, so in the meantime she needs a few big capital ships around which to assemble a taskforce if ever needed.  The 11442s fulfill that requirement, and nothing else does.  A big ship can do things a similar tonnage of small ships cannot.

They can serve as flagship and primary C&C, provide focus to a taskforce, & establish a wide area A2/AD against enemy airpower and stand-off weapons.  Her SAMs can be heavier and more numerous, her radars more powerful and can be mounted at a significant height above waterline, giving her a more distant radar horizon than any smaller vessel.  She is also big enough to carry heavy ECM systems for area coverage, as well as ABM (S-500) systems and their tracking and engagement radars (or radar upgrades).  

Her multilayered AA systems and significant numbers of CIWS make them more difficult to hit than any frigate or corvette, and being a big imposing ship, she will tend to protect her smaller escorts by getting the enemies attention, reducing threat levels against her escorts and improving their surviveability (an important consideration for distributed lethality and the use of networked C&C to assign targets and forwarding targetting info).

While a taskforce of small ships may be able to operate as a group of equals (ie peer-to-peer C&C), having a large flagship with a centralised C&C provide superior battle management and situational awareness for the Commander and his senior staff, as well as better personnel surviveability.   in the unfortunate event of a flagship(s) loss, escorts can resort back to peer-to-peer operation but at a loss of combat efficiency.

In response to some comments here, it should be obvious that a Yasen SSN cannot perform any of the above.  While they are great boats, no sub can form the backbone of a surface taskforce.

Yeah, I think returning the Nahkimov to service as a modern uber-cruiser is worth every ruble.  Do the same to PtG as well.  If Lazarev is not the rusty shitcan that many seem to think, rebuild her as well. 3x 11442 allows 1x to be always available for both Pacific and Northern fleets while the 3rd goes in for repairs/refits.

Finally, don't under-estimate the moral uplift to the Navy and propaganda value to the nation of having 3x of these Big Bad Bitches roaming the seas.  Intimidation factor 10+...   Zumwalt? Hee-haw... gimme a break

Sorry, but your Armata analogy is nonsense. The Armata is not equivalent of clumping a group of tanks into a single big one.
If anything it is much lighter and faster than western MBTs. So it conforms to the fast instead of big ideology.

Armata is exactly to the point.

The battleship is dead, long live the aircraft carrier is the cry from WWII.

Now there is a suggestion that high speed missiles mark the end of the large ship... missile cruisers and carriers.

Well guess what.... the tank is supposed to be dead too... look at the enormous array of anti tank weapons from missiles and bombs to mines and IEDs etc etc...

Yet tanks are still being built... tanks are dead because their armour can be penetrated but if you take away the tank from the battlefield what you need is a new vehicle with heavy armour to protect it from minor weapons on the battlefield and an APS system to protect it from a range of other weapons on the battlefield, and of course it needs a big gun.. so what have you got? A TANK.

Cruisers are obsolete in the modern day and age, as they can be replaced with much smaller ships... you just make the smaller ships bigger so it can carry bigger sensors and more missiles and loiter in its area of operations for longer.. if you make them about the size of a cruiser they are just perfect for the job of replacing cruisers...

Russian naval command is clearly not in a hurry to build a slew of Pyotr Velikiy class battleships. They feel that smaller
ships equipped with missiles can do the job. Spreading assets into several targets compared to one large one is always
going to be the correct approach. The size of capital ships is a relic of the past when they relied on gun turrets lobbing
heavy shells. Modern ships do not lob heavy shells. They fire off missiles. A modern missile ship half the size of the
current Pyotr Velikiy class can be much more deadly.

There is no point is spending a fortune upgrading 3-4 cruisers when you have destroyers that are not upgraded and from the 1980s plus a few corvettes.

They will likely give one cruiser and upgrade followed by another, and in the mean time they will start producing corvettes at a bigger rate and then likely upgrade some destroyers and lay down a few frigates and destroyers too... once they have the core of a fleet of destroyers and frigates and corvettes, then the updated cruisers can start to be replaced by new cruisers and a carrier perhaps.

Building 8 new cruisers and 3 brand new carriers right now would cost a large fortune and what would they do with it?

How often would the need to send a group of ships to Cuba or Venezuala.. or Vietnam?

In ten years time they could upgrade Cam Rahn Bay and send some ships there and some to Cuba too and have them based there... really can't see the future for Venezuala, so it is hard to tell in that regard, but such sailings would boost international trade for Russia just showing that Russia is an international naval power.

I totally agree, for what it could be worth of.

The first two priorities are to recapitalize the workhorses force of the Navy and the various supports ships a Navy need to be effective.

Ideally that first priority would mean frigates, but actually it could be declined as large corvettes.

Project 22380 and derivatives are just that, the workhorses needed for day to day soldiering.

The only point I actually don't understand it is why RN is pushing back design and construction of a new AAW destroyer.

It's the only large ship I would have in service since yesterday, if not a day before.

Given the very good feedback from the Udaloy's deployments on each long range mission in the last years, adding even a little number of modern AAW destroyers would be a huge boost to any existing role played by RN.

They would provide central C4I to small vessels (mainly corvettes) deployed on home waters, AAW escorts to Kutzetsov and Kirov's, long range deployment capabilities along with Udaloys, show of flag for naval diplomacy and so on.

Given the multitude of new long range radar devloped in conjunction of S-350, S-400 and S-500, and related networking and integration HW and SW, would it cost a fortune to develop a naval variant to embark on a 7.000 - 9,000 tons hull?

Let's say a modernized and adapted Udaloy's hull, a navalized 91N6E as main radar and 92N6E as long range tracking radar, pkus standard present day equipment for russian ships.

Ideally that first priority would mean frigates, but actually it could be declined as large corvettes.

Corvettes are not big enough to carry enough missiles. Their large Steregoushchiys class are good but they carry only 12-16 anti air missiles which is just not enough to make this ship their backbone for the navy. Even Gorshkov class doesn't have enough missiles, thats why they are considering super gorshkovs.

Their potential enmies are NATO or Japan or China. They need a big ships with lot of missiles to be their backbone.

The only point I actually don't understand it is why RN is pushing back design and construction of a new AAW destroyer.

Destroyers are big enough to be totally multirole. Why make it only for AAW ? That makes no sense while even gorshkov is very good in every role(anti ship, anti sub, anti air, patroling, surveillance ..). A ship of 9Kt and 160m will have space for everything.

Given the multitude of new long range radar devloped in conjunction of S-350, S-400 and S-500, and related networking and integration HW and SW, would it cost a fortune to develop a naval variant to embark on a 7.000 - 9,000 tons hull?

Let's say a modernized and adapted Udaloy's hull, a navalized 91N6E as main radar and 92N6E as long range tracking radar, pkus standard present day equipment for russian ships.

They already have very good radars for their ships. They just don't build them. Some say they don't know to build them, other say they don't have money and other (like Garry) say they don't need them.

https://concern-agat.ru/en/production/radiolocation-radio-electronic-systems-and-complexes/podberyozovik-et2-radar.html

https://concern-agat.ru/en/production/radiolocation-radio-electronic-systems-and-complexes/radar-with-rotating-l-band-active-phased-array.html

https://concern-agat.ru/en/production/radiolocation-radio-electronic-systems-and-complexes/radar-with-fixed-s-band-active-phased-array.html

What gun systems will the Nakhimov employ? i know 6 pantsirs, possibly a few KPV but what type of main gun?

Wonder if they will put a new stealthy 130mm gun turret to replace the old 130mm guns or put the Koalition on there in a new stealthy turret... I hope the latter of course.

GarryB wrote:Wonder if they will put a new stealthy 130mm gun turret to replace the old 130mm guns or put the Koalition on there in a new stealthy turret... I hope the latter of course.

Just had a look at that gun and it is very nice. Was asking because it looks like the AK-130 had been removed in this picture so was wondering the options. Have they announced making that Koalition as a navy gun? i mean would go quite well on the Kirov class moderations as i believe having a single AE-190 on the back as pretty pointless as its 1 gun with same range as AK-130 and slower ROF.

Well there is this old CGI of naval dual barrel Koalition

But its from back when the ground version was going to be a twin too.

Personally I figure either they'll just overhaul the existing AK-130 or replace it with the modern single barrel 130mm A-192M. (as on Gorshkov)

The whole point behind the Coalition was to have a standard gun type shared with the Army and Navy so costs could be shared.

They have clearly developed the Army gun... the Army likely having more money than the Navy, so the Navy is getting a capable cheap gun.

The Army removed the second gun to reduce size and weight to allow air transport of the vehicle... each gun needs a fully automated twin feed system so you can change ammo types with the push of a button... removing one barrel halved the rate of fire but removed a lot of extra equipment from the turret making it much smaller and lighter.

For a naval gun they can keep both barrels because weight and size really are not an issue... and the extra rate of fire would be very useful.

Having a 70km range gun with guided shells as standard would make this a very potent weapon for cruisers and for landing vessels... accurate fire from 60-70km away would be very useful in many situations and it would be a 24/7 all weather capability which in itself would be useful too.

They could even design other rounds like active sonar rounds they could fire to land in the water and make noise to find enemy subs.... anything found could be fired upon using the anti sub missiles in the UKSK launch tubes... a 152mm shell is fired at a suspected location of a NATO sub... it actively pings and gets a signal where there should be none... the signal is examined and locale listened to carefully and a slight sound signature is detected of a sub trying to move away from the active ping from the shell as it descends... a 91RE2 is launched... it only takes a few minutes to reach 40km from the ship at mach 2, and it drops a torpedo into the water ahead of where the enemy sub is suspected to be.... a few seconds later.... boom.

I suspect the land based Bereg might get its 130mm calibre guns replaced with 152mm guns of better range and performance... but the 100mm guns seem to be replacing the old 76.2mm guns, while the 130mm guns seem to be replacing the 100mm guns, I guess it would make sense to replace the old 130mm guns with a 152mm gun... with guided shells perhaps the 57mm guns can eventually replace the 30mm guns?

Is there any chance of the old style rounded turret housings to return? I realy liked the old Soviet naval turrets apearance.

The-thing-next-door wrote:Is there any chance of the old style rounded turret housings to return? I realy liked the old Soviet naval turrets apearance.

No, they'll probably be stealthy. I really wish they add a 152mm turret.

Also, if the leader wont be built, why aren't the Russians racing to upgrade the Lazarev? when peter the great and kuznetsov will be in upgrade/overhaul, how will the northern fleet be able to have long range AA?